A Second Chance At What Could Have Been
by LoveandLearn
Summary: Starts off kind of depressing and angsty and ends in a semi-fluffy way. It's basically a different take on what happen when Addison went to Seattle to give Derek divorce papers. Oh, and it's a one-shot. A fairly long one at that.


Since catching his wife in bed with her best friend, Derek had been ignoring his wife and everyone else from his old life. He had come to Seattle and he had established a new life for himself. When Addison showed up in Seattle he stayed determined to continue ignoring her. And he was sure she got the message that he was not interested in making amends with her.

He knew that she had officially accepted the end of their marriage when she presented him with divorce papers. "If you sign, I'll sign. I'll sign and be on the first plan out of here." She told him, knowing that he had been waiting for her to say those words since she arrived.

He nodded just slightly. "I'll sign them immediately." He responded and watched her retreat into the elevator and he continued the day as if nothing had ever happened.

That night he decided to go to her hotel to go over the papers with her. He thought they should discuss how they would split everything and have the papers revised to specifically include those details. He wanted everything to end with precise certainty.

She was wearing an old sweater of his and a pair of his flannel pajama bottoms (which she accidently shrunk years ago while doing her first ever load of laundry) when she answered the door. There was no doubt that she was not expecting to see him. "Derek…what are you doing here?" she asked him.

"I thought we should read through the papers together. I was going to invite you over to my trailer but you wouldn't answer your phone so I decided to come find out. Richard told me you were staying here, but I think he only said it because he thought I was coming to get together."

"Oh." She replied simply as she opened the door wider to let him in.

He walked into the room and looked around. It was as if she was analyzing every detail of the surroundings. "I was expecting to find you in a suite…not a room with no bed. Do they seriously expect guests to sleep on the couch? I didn't even know they offer rooms like that. Why didn't you get something a little bigger…and better?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It's actually a pull-out bed but I'm too lazy to actually do all that so I just sleep on it as it is." She answered. "And I didn't get a bigger room because I don't need a bigger room. I'm staying in here alone, and I'm sleeping alone so the couch is really all I need."

"Okay…" Derek answered slowly. "So you wanna talk about what I came here to talk about or do you wanna go on making friendly conversation about nothing."

"What is there left to talk about?" she asked him ask she crashed down on the couch.

"Well we could talk about who gets what… We could think of a custody arrangement. I think you forgot to mention that to your lawyer because it says we have no children on the divorce papers. What happen to you being pregnant? I mean, I heard you correctly when you screamed it at me in the middle of the hall, right? What did you do? Abort it."

Although she hated to make it obvious, that was Addison's sensitive spot. "What?" she asked in shock, looking as if someone killed a puppy in front of her.

"The baby you claimed you were pregnant with. What happen to it?"

"Derek, I found out I was pregnant when I was eight weeks along. I didn't know how to tell you so I waited. Then I realized our anniversary was coming up in two weeks and I thought I would tell you then. But you didn't come home that night. So I got fed up and we had that fight the next morning at work. And you didn't talk to me for the rest of the day; you didn't come home after your shift. So when Mark showed up I lost control and I did something stupid and then you came home…with two dozen red roses, that stupid 'If you think I'm cute wait until you see my Daddy' bib and that ridicules book of baby names. Then you left and I had no idea where you went or if you were ever coming back…"

"So you had an abortion?" he yelled in anger.

"I had a miscarriage, Derek. "She told him delicately. "The day after you left…"

He looked down at her speechlessly. He wasn't sure what to say or how to say it. He didn't want to sound like an asshole but he didn't want to make it sound like he pitied her. So he stood there like he had just been shot right in the heart and stared at her.

"I was on the phone with Ami… She was at your mom's house. I thought you would be there, I sent her to go check in a very discreet manner. Anyway, right before I hung up with her I noticed blood on my scrubs. And then I felt cramping and I passed out from the pain. I was in my office so no one even realized. By the time I woke up the baby was gone. "

"So there is no more baby?" he asked her slowly, still coming to terms with that fact.

"No. I'm sorry." she replied without being able to look him in the eyes. "But I kept this for you…" she got up and grabbed her purse off the table beside the window. She took out her wallet and retrieved a small picture that she held out to him. "I wasn't sure what you're supposed to do with those after a miscarriage. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. I mean…it's the only picture we've got of the only child we've ever had."

Derek took the picture from her and looked at it for a few seconds. "If it was a girl, she would have had your eyes and my hair. She'd have your nose and my charm. She would love shopping but she would secretly love baseball more. She would end up following in your footsteps and be this amazing neonatal surgeon. If it was a boy, he would still have my hair. His eyes would be the shape of mine but the color of yours. He would was a twisted sense of humor like my sisters and he would have your brother's personality. He would not go into medicine, he would be something pointless like a pro skateboarder but we would still be blindly proud of him. My mother would spoil them rotten with cookies and unconditional love and your parents would buy a pony and be even. "

"Will you stop?" she asked him. "You're here to talk about divorce papers. You're not here to talk about what could have been. So stick to your purpose. Let's do what we need to do and let's get over with this whole thing so we can all move on with our lives."

"It really could have been…" he mumbled. "If I can came home in time than you wouldn't have slept with him. You wouldn't go through all that stress and guilt and regret. You would have been fine and we wouldn't be here right now talking about this….all I had to do was make time for you."

"Derek, there is no use in thinking like that. You can't change what happen. I cheated on you, I lost our baby, I didn't tell you about it and you moved on. There is nothing we can do to change any of that."

She was gone the very next morning. Richard had yelled at him for over an hour because he assumed that Derek was somehow responsible for her leaving. As much as he tried to deny it, he knew that he was part of the reason she was gone. She had a point, he shouldn't dwell on what could have been if the past worked differently but he couldn't stop thinking about it. There were supposed to have child together, they were supposed to live happily ever after.

Two weeks after she left, he received a package which had been delivered to his office. He opened the box to find an envelope neatly placed at the top. It contained a short letter written in Addison's perfect handwriting.

_I ended up throwing away everything I had gotten for the baby since I found out I was pregnant. I got a little too carried away after having a whole bottle of wine and I cut up a few onesies and ripped a few pages out of the bedtime stories. But I couldn't destroy the bib. It's too cute to ruin. So I figured I'd send it back to you with the book of names. You might need it sometime in the future. Just ignore what I wrote in there. After you left that night I went through the book and picked out a few names to make myself feel better. _

_Oh, and I included your Clash CDs, I'm not sure how you've survived without them so far. If there is anything else you want from here just give me a call._

Derek took the book out of the box. He sat down at his desk and began flipping through the pages. On the back cover of the book he noticed her handwriting depict two separate lists.

_Boy: Jason, Andrew, Alex, Christopher, Michael, Joseph, Carson  
Girl: Ashley, Stephanie, Erin, Elizabeth, Amy...CARSON!_

He laughed at the last name on the list and made a mental note to forbid her from naming any child that. He sat there, staring at that page and had the image in his mind. He and his wife with their son or their daughter. He could almost imagine exactly what their child would look like, he went down the list of names and tried to decide which one would work best with the image he had in his mind.

Two hours later he was still sitting there, a dorky grin on a his face as the fantasy played on in his mind. He realized he couldn't decide on the one name that would fit. That wasn't a decision he could make on his own. So he packed his briefcase and grabbed the box off his desk, he went out to his car and drove straight to the airport. He demanded to be on the next flight to New York, regardless of the fact that the plane was already sold out. Once he got there, he took a cab back to the Brownstone and stood on the stairs in front of the house. He didn't want to use his key and just walk in. He didn't know if he should knock or if he should just turn around and go right back to Seattle.

Before he could make up his mind the front door opened and he saw Addison standing there in an oversized t-shirt with her arms crossed over her chest. "The cops are on their way." She warned him with a look of amusement on her face.

"You called the cops on me?" he asked unbelievably. He was standing perfectly still on the very top step in front of the door. He looked into her eyes in confusion, wondering if he should be offended that she had called the cops on him.

"I didn't. Remember that old woman that lives next door? The one that would call the cops every time we had sex because she thought I was being raped. Well she saw you standing there and she thought you were trying to break in. So she took it upon herself to call the cops then called to make sure I was okay."

"That bitch is still alive?" he asked, turned around to see an old woman looking out her window and hiding behind a sheer curtain. "You'd think the cops would stop picking up her calls after that time we did it five times…and she called them every single time."

"Do you wanna come in?" she offered, standing aside so he can walk in. "I'm sure they won't arrest you for trying to come home…I'll even testify on your side." She smiled as he walked into the house and walked through to the living room. He dropped the box on the coffee table and sat down on the couch with a sigh.

"I am so tired." He complained. "I was on call all night, and this morning there was a six car pile-up that came in. When I was done with that I saw the box and…then I took a connecting flight out here which took eight hours instead of five and there was a kid next to me who whined the whole time…"

"Derek, I mentioned in the note that if you wanted something all you had to do was tell me. You didn't need to come all the way here to get it yourself."

"I want you." He told her matter-of-factly. "I want my life back, the life I had with you. So I had to come back." He explained.

"Derek…"

He stopped her before she could go on any further. "Since I saw the names you wrote in the book, I had this imagine in my mind. You, me and two kids. A girl and a boy. And I was trying to decide which name would work best for them…And I decided we could still have that."

"What makes you think we can still have that, Derek?" she asked, "You have a girlfriend. I cheated on you with your best friend. We are long passed the boundaries of being a perfect family."

"I don't have a girlfriend anymore. She dumped me. She said I was not over you and she wasn't going to be my rebound and she left. And you made a mistake, people make mistakes. I got over that. If you can get over what I did to you, than we can try again."

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Addison asked

"I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life." He assured her. "And I realize how cliché that sounds but I'm serious. I really want this, Addie. I wanna have that perfect life we always imagined for ourselves. And I want to have it with you."

Addison smiled and nodded her head. She wiped away a tear with her hand and sniffled before walking closer to him to give him a soft kiss. She pulled away from his arms when she heard loud banging on the front door. "I think that would be the NYPD." She murmured.

One Year Later:

Derek was seated in his wife's office with a barely two hour old baby in his arms. He was holding a bottle of formula steadily in the baby's mouth and watching him eat the contents contently. He looked from the innocent child in his arms up to his wife, "So we got called in because this kid's mother ran a red light and crashed into the guy that just died on my OR table…"

"Yeah. She was in labor, she says she was in pain and she wanted to get here ASAP so she didn't noticed the light. She's okay though."

"His mother doesn't want him?" he asked skeptically with his brows furrowed together."How could she not want him, he's the most perfect human being I've ever seen."

"She has no money, Derek. She's got no one to help her or support her, she doesn't have any education or a decent job. She's a prostitute, Derek. And she doesn't even get paid in cash. She asks for crack or heroine instead of money. Do you think a woman like that is capable of raising a child?"

Derek shook his head. "So social services is going to come take him?" Derek asked sadly, "Are you sure he's okay? Maybe you should keep him for a day or two to make sure he's actually stable."

"Derek, he's a perfect 10 on the scale. Every test I've done on him came back all clear. There is nothing wrong with him. But no, I haven't called child services yet. I wanted to run something past you first."

"Do you need a consult? Do you think something neurological can be wrong with him?" he asked in concern.

"Derek, you have held that child for ten minutes and you are already more attached than his own mother is. So next time I get attach to a baby, you can't lecture me. And no, I don't need a consult." She replied. "I was talking to the mother and she's willing to let us adopt him. She doesn't care who gets him as long as she doesn't have to see him."

"Adopt him…" Derek repeated as he looked down at the baby in his arms. "I thought we were trying to have our own baby."

"We are, we still will…" she assured. "But Derek, it might not happen. I may miscarry again. This may be our chance to become parents. We'll still try, but if it doesn't happen for us than at least we'll have him."

He held the empty bottle out to Addison and repositioned the baby against his chest to burp him. He rubbed small soothing circles onto his little back. When he heard a small burp he got up and turned the baby back over to Addison. He watched her as she tried to get him to sleep so she could put him in a small plastic basinet and take him up to the nursery.

Derek took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he watched Addison tend to the baby in a very maternal fashion and he smiled proudly. "Where do we get adoption papers?"

* * *

"Stop staring at him, Derek." Addison repeated for what she thought was the hundredth time. "He's thirty seven hours old and the only thing he's see is you in his face."

Derek passed their son into her arms and rubbed his eyes tiredly. She was right, he hadn't taken his eye off the baby since the first time he held him. He stood by their side and continued watching his little baby as if he was about to disappear into thin air.

"Derek, you haven't slept since we got paged in… I've got him, babe. Trust me, I know how to take care of a newborn. Just turn around and close your eyes for like…and hour."

Derek shook his head. "I can't. He's a whole day and a half old and he doesn't even have a name yet. He needs a name, Addison. We can just call him "Baby" for the rest of his life."

"We will think of something, Derek. Trust me, he's not going to be nameless his entire life." She promised. "And if you're not going sleep than do me a favor and shower. You smell like sweat."

Derek sighed and gave in. He got off their bed and walked into their adjoined bathroom for a quick shower. He came out less than ten minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist. He went into his closet and she couldn't help but notice how long it was taking him to get dressed.

"Derek?" she called out.

He slowly walked out of the closet and said. "I found this in my briefcase." He held up the book of baby names he had gotten almost a year and half earlier. "And if my memory serves me correctly, we've got a list of names back here." He said as he flipped to the last page where her hand writing and blue ink stained the book.

"You still have this?" she asked, somewhat surprised.

"Yeah, you said I was going to need it in the future and you were right." He answered. "So… Jason, Andrew, Alex, Michael, Joseph or Christopher?" he asked as he looked down at the bundle in her arms to try to decide which one fits the best.

"I recall writing Carson on that list."

"Yeah, well…I crossed that one out. It's not on the list anymore. I love this kid too much to let you name him Carson."

Her lips curled into a pout as she looked back down at her baby. "I don't want to name him Andrew because Drew is short for Andrew and I'm not fond of that name…or Andy. That doesn't sound too great either. Which leaves Jason, Christopher, Michael and Joseph and Alex."

"My brother's middle name is Michael." Addison remembered. "So that's out. He might think we named out son after him and we are NOT giving him that gratification. His ego is already too big as it is. And I'm not sure I'm too into the name Joseph anymore. It's not a bad name... but it doesn't fit him."

"Christopher was my dad's name. And it's my middle name." he said, knowing it's a fact that she already knew. "I'm not sure I'd wanna name him after my dad…brings up bad memories. So it's Jason or Alex. We could name him Alexander and call him Alex for short. That way he'll have this very formal sophisticated name and he'll have a very chill name. Or if we name him Jason, we could call him Jay for short…oh, and your brother can teach him Leno impressions."

"Derek, stop stressing over it!" she exclaimed tiredly and carefully extended the baby out to him. "Will you put him in that basinet? I am exhausted and I don't want to fall asleep with him in my arms."

Derek nodded and took the baby from her arms. He gently placed his son down in a basinet which he knew Addison spent way too much money on. All he remembers is that she insisted that their baby should sleep in their room for the first few weeks. She said something about how it would be easier to wake up and walk two feet rather than go across the hall. After putting him in the small bed, he got back into bed but kept his eyes fixed on his little boy. He watched as his son peacefully fell asleep.

"He's an Alex, Addison. He's Alex. Jason can be his middle name. He looks like an Alex. Alexander Jason Shepherd…sounds good, right?" When he didn't hear her response, he turned around to find her already asleep. He smiled contently and turned back to his son. "Even if she doesn't agree and decides you're a Jason, I'm still gonna call you Alex."

* * *

And that was my latest one-shot. College doesn't leave much time for chaptered fics so... I have no choice but to write _long _one-shots when the muse strikes. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.


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